Meaningful permitting reform that Republicans and Democrats can agree on

Originally published: December 12, 2025

Summary

Republicans and Democrats can finally enact meaningful permitting reform if they start with the House’s promising SPEED and PERMIT Acts and negotiate for even more comprehensive reform, while maintaining tech-neutrality.

1. America’s future depends on Congress passing meaningful permitting reform

   Meaningful permitting reform is an absolute requirement for America’s future prosperity, competitiveness, and security...yet there is a big risk Congress will fail to pass it.

2. Meaningful reform needs to be tech-neutral and comprehensive

   Meaningful permitting reform is challenging because it requires rejecting tech-favoritism in favor of tech-neutrality, and superficiality in favor of comprehensiveness.

3. SPEED is a strong start to improving NEPA permitting

   The SPEED Act dramatically reduces delays from project-wrecking NEPA reviews, above all by preventing their extension via frivolous litigation.

4. PERMIT is a strong start to improving Clean Water Act permitting

   The PERMIT Act stops states from abusing the CWA to veto safe projects for political reasons, and sets clear water emissions standards that give projects certainty.

5. Additional opportunities for comprehensive reform to NEPA, CWA, CAA, and ESA

   Elected officials can get permitting reform done by starting with SPEED and PERMIT and negotiating for even more comprehensive reform, while still rejecting tech-favoritism.

6. Using “permitting certainty” to negotiate the best possible reforms

   Republicans should be willing to compromise with Democrats on “permitting certainty” in exchange for other reforms, since permitting certainty is itself a pro-freedom reform.

7. Avoiding the danger of subsidizing wind/solar transmission

   Elected officials should not agree to any specific language on permitting electric transmission lines, which forces new costs on ratepayers, usually to subsidize wind and solar, unless it ensures the lowest possible cost of reliable electricity for ratepayers.

1: America’s future depends on Congress passing meaningful permitting reform

Meaningful permitting reform is an absolute requirement for America’s future prosperity, competitiveness, and security...yet there is a big risk Congress will fail to pass it.

• One of the most important political questions in the next few months for American energy, our economy, and our security is: will Congress finally enact meaningful permitting reform?

• From natural gas plants to pipelines to nuclear power plants to electric transmission lines to battery factories to solar farms, every form of energy is crippled by America’s onerous and endless permitting process.

• It’s not just energy that our permitting system cripples. Railroads, highways, chip factories, seaports, landfills, and wildfire-prevention projects are routinely delayed or canceled by federal permitting. An estimated $1.1 to $1.5 trillion in total capital is tied up in federal permitting processes.¹

• Both parties say they recognize the urgency of meaningful permitting reform. But there is extreme doubt about whether any permitting package will pass, let alone one that will actually shave years off projects and make America a great place to build again.

2: Meaningful reform needs to be tech-neutral and comprehensive

Meaningful permitting reform is challenging because it requires rejecting tech-favoritism in favor of tech-neutrality, and superficiality in favor of comprehensiveness.

• In order to pass meaningful permitting reform, Republicans and Democrats need to overcome the two tendencies that prevented reform in the past and continue to threaten it right now: tech-favoritism and superficiality.

• Obstacle – Tech-favoritism: Many want easier permitting, but only for their preferred projects, and often with special favoritism on top of that—while they’re willing to burden non-preferred projects with onerous permitting. This prevents reform by creating endless fights about preferences and punishments.

• Certain Democrats are happy to make it difficult to permit oil and gas projects, such as power plants and refineries and pipelines, but they want fast permitting for wind and solar projects—and subsidies for wind, solar, and the new electric transmission lines they require. Certain Republicans are happy to make it difficult to permit wind and solar projects, but want fast permitting for oil and gas projects.

• Solution – Tech-neutrality: The only moral and practical approach to permitting reform is to make it technology-neutral. All technologies should be held to the same standards of permitting, whether safety or environmental quality. Those who (rightly) object to subsidized projects should cut the subsidies, not ruin permitting.

• Obstacle – Superficiality: Many want to do something about permitting, but end up doing something superficial because they fear controversy and demonization if they tackle the fundamental reforms needed to reform legislation such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or the Clean Water Act.

• Solution – Comprehensiveness: Both parties need to declare that America’s permitting system is a disaster that requires deep, comprehensive changes to existing legislation, but that these changes can be made without reducing (and sometimes improving) environmental quality. E.g., NEPA hampers permitting of wildfire protection measures.

• So long as enough politicians are unwilling to overcome tech favoritism and superficiality, our permitting system will be a disaster, and the future of our prosperity, competitiveness, and security will be in doubt as China and others build quickly while we continue to handicap ourselves with special interest policies.

3: The House has provided a strong start to meaningful permitting reform with the SPEED Act

The SPEED Act, which is up for a vote in the House the week of December 15, 2025, dramatically reduces delays from project-wrecking NEPA reviews, above all by preventing their extension via frivolous litigation.

• SPEED requires a reasonable, not unlimited, scope of review—saving months or years of useless paperwork for crucial projects like pipelines, LNG export terminals, and refineries. E.g., under NEPA’s traditional, unlimited scope of review, the Uinta Basin oil rail line required a 3600-page environmental review even though it was only 88 miles!²

• SPEED avoids duplicative reviews—saving months or years of unnecessary reviews for projects, such as pipelines and highways, that have already been reviewed for NEPA or by states. E.g., currently, a project that already spent years completing environmental analysis for California law must repeat essentially the same analysis for NEPA.³

• SPEED reduces the number of frivolous lawsuits—avoiding hundreds of politically driven lawsuits per year for major projects like pipelines and electric transmission lines over paperwork issues. E.g., under NEPA’s current litigation regime, the Mountain Valley Pipeline was sued again and again over alleged paperwork issues in its NEPA review.⁴

• SPEED reduces the delaying power of lawsuits—saving years of unnecessary delays and protecting hundreds of billions in capital expenditures for pipelines, power lines, roads, and mines. E.g., under NEPA’s current litigation regime, Mountain Valley took 10 years from proposal to completion since it stopped for years at a time during lawsuits.⁵

• SPEED protects and even improves environmental quality. The SPEED Act doesn’t change the substance of environmental law, but it does allow environmental improvement to happen more quickly. E.g., today’s onerous NEPA reviews are often used to stop wildfire countermeasures such as controlled burns or brush-clearing.⁶

• The SPEED Act is co-sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR-4) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME-2). It is a major improvement of NEPA that deserves to pass with strong bipartisan support.

The SPEED Act benefits cost-effective projects much more than it benefits heavily subsidized projects.

• Myth: The technology-neutral SPEED Act will benefit heavily subsidized projects (e.g., wind and solar) more than it will benefit cost-effective projects (e.g., oil and gas).

  Truth: It will benefit cost-effective projects—e.g., offshore oil and gas, pipelines, mining—much more since many subsidies are disappearing soon, and since SPEED doesn’t change the government’s authorities against actually unlawful projects.

  • Myth: Permitting certainty will result in a gold rush of new subsidy collection, e.g., for offshore wind.

    Truth: The timetable on the “Big Beautiful Bill” subsidy cuts will severely restrain a subsidy rush. Subsidies can only be collected by projects “placed in service” by the end of 2027 or “in construction” by July 5, 2026—and the admin has added considerably stricter “in construction” requirements.⁷

  • Myth: Permitting certainty under the SPEED Act prevents the admin from withdrawing unlawful or dangerous permits.

    Truth: It allows agencies to withdraw permits in cases that involve missing actual dangers, fraud, national security threats, or material violations of the law—and it doesn’t limit authorities under existing law, which allow the same.

4: The House has further provided a solid start to permitting reform with the PERMIT Act

The PERMIT Act, which passed the House on December 11, 2025, stops states from abusing the Clean Water Act to veto safe projects for political reasons, and sets clear water emissions standards that give projects certainty.

• PERMIT removes states’ power to veto projects for political reasons—avoiding unjust, late-stage cancellations of major projects like pipelines, hydro dams, and LNG terminals. E.g., using states’ current veto power, Oregon denied the certification for the Jordan Cove LNG export terminal even though it passed all federal safety standards.⁸

• PERMIT will unlock natural gas pipelines needed to lower costs and meet AI demand. E.g., the Constitution pipeline, transporting much-needed gas from PA to NY, has been sabotaged by New York state, which demanded more and more additional information for what should have been routine stream crossings under a §404 permit.⁹

• PERMIT removes the EPA’s power to veto projects for political reasons—avoiding rare but highly destructive early- and late-stage cancellations of major energy, mining, and infrastructure projects. E.g., under EPA’s current sweeping veto authority, EPA preemptively denied a key §404 permit for the Pebble Mine project in Alaska in 2023.¹⁰

• PERMIT requires water-quality-based permitting requirements to be clear, achievable, and predictable—making it easier for power plants, mines, and chemical factories to comply with their permits. E.g., under today’s standards, agencies can deny permits for alleged water “degradation” without ever giving projects discharge limits to design around.

• PERMIT helps ensure pollution controls are realistically achievable, not just technologically possible—providing certainty for long-term investments in industries like energy production, manufacturing, and municipal water systems. E.g., under today’s rules, regulators can require power plants to eliminate trace pollutants to near-zero levels using treatment systems that are still experimental.

• The PERMIT Act is co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA-10) and Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO-6).

5: Additional opportunities for comprehensive reform to NEPA, CWA, CAA, and ESA

Elected officials can get permitting reform done by starting with SPEED and PERMIT and negotiating for even more comprehensive reform, while still rejecting tech-favoritism.

• Advocates of all forms of energy support tech-neutral, comprehensive permitting reform. The SPEED Act is supported by trade associations from the oil-and-gas-focused American Petroleum Institute to the solar-and-wind-focused American Clean Power.¹¹

• The SPEED Act’s fixes of NEPA benefit all forms of energy and infrastructure —from current Republican focuses (e.g., oil and gas pipelines) to current Democrat focuses (e.g., electric transmission lines) to substantially bipartisan focuses (e.g., nuclear plants, mines, and roads).

• The PERMIT Act’s fixes of the Clean Water Act benefit all forms of energy and infrastructure—e.g., not just oil and gas (currently more of a Republican focus), but also electric transmission infrastructure (currently more of a Democrat focus).

• Therefore, no major “concessions” should be needed to satisfy Democrats or Republicans—only improvements to tech-neutral permitting.

Negotiations should consider further tech-neutral additions that would further expedite permitting while protecting environmental quality.

1. Amend the SPEED Act before passing it out of the House, to further narrow the scope of review to a reasonable level and to further limit standing to legitimate plaintiffs.

   a. Narrow the scope of NEPA review to impacts that federal agencies have the legal authority to regulate—avoiding time-consuming review of impacts from paleontology to traffic patterns that agencies cannot even control. This has been proposed by Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA-10).¹²

   b. Narrow which “significant effects” require an “environmental impact statement” under NEPA to those which concretely harm human health or property—avoiding the most onerous reviews for projects that do not threaten human life. This has been proposed by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX-21).¹³

   c. Explicitly limit judicial standing to parties who can demonstrate not only “direct” but also concrete, material harm from the project—preventing litigation from delaying projects over aesthetic or recreational issues. This has been proposed by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA-9).¹⁴

2. Reform the Clean Air Act as part of a final Senate permitting package, to streamline permitting for power plants and industrial facilities.

   a. Pass the CLEAR Act (H.R. 4218)15, which extends the NAAQS review cycle to 10 years, requires EPA to consider attainability and economic feasibility in setting air standards, and prevents states from being penalized when their “nonattainment” of air standards is caused by emissions outside of their control. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA-1).

   b. Pass the FENCES Act (H.R. 6409)¹⁶, which bars EPA from designating areas in “nonattainment” of air standards due to emissions coming from outside the US. This bill is sponsored by Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX-11).

   c. Pass the FIRE Act (H.R. 6387)¹⁷, which prevents states from being penalized for pollution caused by controlled burns and other wildfire-prevention work. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO-8).

   d. Pass the Fair Enforcement Act (S. 3049)¹⁸, which prevents anti-development activists from abusing CAA to block crucial projects through “citizen suits.” This bill is sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).

   e. Pass the Clean Air and Building Infrastructure Improvement Act (H.R. 4214)¹⁹, which requires EPA to publish clear rules to accompany any new air quality standard and restricts agencies from delaying projects through indefinite review. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA-12).

   f. Pass the Air Permitting Improvements to Protect National Security Act (H.R. 6373)²⁰, which prevents CAA from blocking projects critical to national security, including semiconductor manufacturing funded under the CHIPS Act. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL-6).

3. Reform the Endangered Species Act as part of a final Senate permitting package, to reduce its abuse to block crucial projects.

   a. Pass the ESA Amendments Act of 2025 (H.R. 1897)²¹, which narrows when species can be listed as “threatened,” raises the evidentiary standard for halting projects based on alleged species impacts, and promotes private conservation. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR-4).

4. Amend the PERMIT Act as part of a final Senate permitting package, to be more realistic and reduce duplicative review.

   a. Require technology-based limitations to be based on commercially available technologies (vs the current PERMIT language, which only makes EPA consider commercial availability as one factor in choosing the compliance technology).

   b. Exempt USACE-issued permits from (duplicative) NEPA, ESA, and NHPA requirements.

5. Reform cost-allocation for electric transmission lines as part of a final Senate permitting package, to make it fair.

   a. Pass the FAIR Act (H. R. 6336)²², which stops states from being forced to pay for interstate power lines built to serve other states’ “renewable” energy policies. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-ND).

6: Using “permitting certainty” to negotiate the best possible reforms

Republicans should be willing to compromise with Democrats on “permitting certainty” in exchange for other permitting reforms since “permitting certainty” is itself a pro-freedom reform.

• Many Democrats in the House and Senate have expressed interest in negotiating with Republicans for more “permitting certainty.” Pro-freedom Republicans should see this as a huge opportunity, since it amounts to Democrats offering to adopt additional pro-freedom reforms in exchange for pro-freedom reforms.

• “Permitting certainty” should be a bipartisan priority, and would have prevented many of the Biden-era abuses against fossil fuel and mining projects. For example, in 2021 the Biden Administration retroactively suspended the oil and gas leases previously granted in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. In 2022 it canceled leases for the Twin Metals project in Minnesota.

• The genesis of the permitting certainty opportunity is the House Freedom Caucus’s push for wind/solar subsidy cuts during reconciliation. That push led to both more cuts than would have otherwise happened—and, because the cuts were incomplete, an agreement by the admin to use its permitting authority to fight against subsidized projects.

• The Trump administration pulling permits from wind/solar projects woke up Democrat supporters of those projects to the problems with today’s easy-to-delay-and-oppose permit system—which Republicans were acutely aware of when Biden used them to oppose natural gas and mining projects.

• HFC and other Republicans who aggressively support economic freedom should eagerly agree to some form of permitting certainty in exchange for further strengthening SPEED and PERMIT, and adding other reforms to fix permitting under the Clean Air Act (today a major obstacle to electricity growth) or the Endangered Species Act (today a major obstacle to potentially any project).

• Myth: Opponents of subsidies should support unpredictable and lengthy permitting for subsidized projects.

  Truth: Subsidized wind and solar projects should be reduced by opposing subsidies, not by permitting punishments, and the recent “Big Beautiful Bill” cuts will rightly stop many subsidized projects—including offshore wind, which is uneconomic without subsidies.

• Elected officials who are angry that some new wind/solar projects will get marginally more access to subsidies under permitting reform should remember that they, as a reconciliation compromise, knowingly agreed to not fully cut wind/solar subsidies²³. If they decided that was a reasonable compromise to make, they should be thrilled by the opportunity they have to lead tech-neutral, comprehensive permitting reform by agreeing to the pro-freedom policy of permitting certainty.

• If some officials refuse to support the SPEED Act in the name of demanding special punishments for wind and solar, they will undercut their credibility as advocates of economic freedom and hand all the power in the negotiating process to those who want to water down SPEED and get massive new subsidies for wind/solar transmission.

7: Avoiding the danger of subsidizing wind/solar transmission

Elected officials should be extremely wary of new language permitting electric transmission line building by electric monopolies, since this forces costs on ratepayers and is easily abused by monopolies and wind/solar developers.

• Behind the legitimate demand for permitting certainty, the number one negotiating demand by many Democrats and some Republicans is “permitting reform” that is specifically focused on electric transmission. This sounds innocuous but if not handled correctly is an absolute subsidy disaster for our economy and grid.

• Easing transmission permitting is dangerous because ratepayers are forced to pay for it. With most forms of permitting, we simply want the government to make it easier to do safely, because the project operator is a private company who takes full responsibility for the cost and cannot force consumers to pay for their mistakes. With transmission permitting, permitting lines are part of the electric monopoly system that forces its costs on consumers.

• Powerful companies are incentivized to overbuild transmission. Transmission permitting is particularly dangerous to unleash without oversight because two forms of powerful companies are heavily incentivized to do it or advocate for it unnecessarily and inefficiently: monopoly utilities and wind/solar developers.

• Monopolies get a guaranteed profit for building transmission in proportion to the cost of building transmission. Wind/solar developers can collect far more subsidies, because new transmission allows them to link wind and solar farms to demand centers that are usually far away from them and they can socialize the costs of excessive transmission buildouts throughout the local grid system.

• Transmission-building doesn’t usually make sense, because—absent bad regulations—the cheapest way to build reliable power is usually to do so with local, reliable power plants. Building transmission does not make economic sense to connect unreliable, faraway wind/solar supply to demand centers, since this “cheaper” unreliable power is more expensive when you add up the full system costs of ensuring reliability.

• The vast majority of the transmission proposals thus far amount to large subsidies for wind and solar developers and thus should be rejected in tech-neutral permitting reform. This includes the last Senate’s (not passed) Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (S.4753)²⁴ and the various Democrat proposals on the table.

• If the transmission-subsidizing proposals pass, they’ll make our electricity price problems much worse. Note that one of the top two contributors to rising electricity prices over the past two decades has been rising transmission costs²⁵—which thanks to bad policy occurred even when demand was flat and objective new transmission needs were modest.

Transmission-specific language is legitimate and positive if it optimizes for the lowest price of reliable power to consumers, not wind/solar-favoring criteria such as unreliable “wholesale” cost or “congestion relief”.

• Tech-neutral reforms already include transmission, so there is no imperative to include transmission-specific legislation. E.g., the SPEED Act helps transmission projects, which are among the types of projects most affected by NEPA litigation.²⁶

• Transmission language should not be off the table in permitting reform, since today’s legislation is far from perfect. But the language needs to be worded very carefully to ensure that as much as possible it leads to cost-effective transmission that is paid for by the right people.

• Transmission does make sense when there is a somewhat distant source of reliable power that is considerably cheaper and/or more plentiful than local power. Sometimes transmission makes sense due to political reasons, usually irrational, that prevent low-cost and plentiful local power that could otherwise exist. (In this case the preferable solution is to fix the bad policies.)

• Transmission permitting should have strict criteria to ensure it optimizes for lowest cost and sufficient availability of reliable electricity for ratepayers. It’s important that the cost and availability analysis be done for ratepayers because then that factors in the full system cost of any decision.

• Transmission permitting must reject popular criteria that favor transmission to accommodate unreliable wind/solar, such as “wholesale cost” (which measures the cost of unreliable wind/solar electricity vs. the full cost of making it reliable for ratepayers) or “congestion relief” (code for: wind/solar developers want their erratic, spiky power to be absorbed however unnecessary and faraway).

• Transmission permitting must have fair cost allocation, so the consumers who actually benefit from new transmission through lower retail electricity bills and/or great availability should pay for it. Fortunately, the House has an excellent bill for this already: Julie Fedorchak’s FAIR Act.²⁷

Conclusion: Republicans and Democrats should converge on permitting reform that is tech-neutral, as comprehensive as possible, and only adds language on electric transmission if it is carefully tailored to actually lower cost instead of enriching monopolies and subsidy-seekers at taxpayer and ratepayer expense.

Michelle Hung, Steffen Henne, and Daniil Gorbatenko contributed to this piece.

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